1. Never give me work in the morning. Always wait until 4pm and then bring it in to me. The challenge of a deadline is refreshing.

2. If it’s a rush job, run in and interrupt me every 10 minutes to inquire how I am doing. That helps. Or even better, hover behind me, advising my every keystroke.

3. Always leave without telling anyone where you are going. It gives me a chance to be creative when someone asks where you are.

4. If my arms are full of papers, boxes, books or supplies, don’t open the door for me. I need to learn how to function as a paraplegic and opening doors with no arms is good training.

5. If you give me more than one job to do, don’t tell me which is the priority. I am psychic.

6. Do your best to keep me late. I adore this office and really have nowhere to go or anything to do. I have no life beyond work.

7. If a job I do pleases you, keep it a secret. If that gets out, it could mean a promotion.

8. If you don’t like my work, tell everyone. I like my name to be popular in conversations.

9. I was born to be whipped.

10. If you have special instructions for a job, don’t write them down. In fact, save them until the job is almost done. No use confusing me with useful information.

11. Never introduce me to people you are with. I have no right to know anything. In the corporate food chain, I am plankton. When you refer to them later, my shrewd deductions will identify them.

12 Be nice to me only when the job I am doing for you could really change your life and send you straight to manager’s hell.

13. Tell me all your little problems. No one else has any, and its nice to know someone is less fortunate. I especially like the story about having to pay so much taxes on the bonus cheque you received for being such a good manager.

14. Wait until my yearly review and THEN tell me what my goal SHOULD have been. Give me a mediocre performance rating with a cost of living increase. I’m not here for the money anyway.

The public doesn’t like a blank check. They think this whole bailout idea is nuts. They see fat cats on Wall Street who have raked in zillions for years, now extorting in effect $2,000 to $5,000 from every American family to make up for their own nonfeasance, malfeasance, greed, and just plain stupidity. Wall Street’s request for a blank check comes at the same time most of the public is worried about their jobs and declining wages, and having enough money to pay for gas and food and health insurance, meet their car payments and mortgage payments, and save for their retirement and childrens’ college education. And so the public is asking: Why should Wall Street get bailed out by me when I’m getting screwed?

So if you are a member of Congress, you just might be in a position to demand from Wall Street certain conditions in return for the blank check…

1. The government (i.e. taxpayers) gets an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.

2. Wall Street executives and directors of Wall Street firms relinquish their current stock options and this year’s other forms of compensation, and agree to future compensation linked to a rolling five-year average of firm profitability. Why should taxpayers feather their already amply-feathered nests?

3. All Wall Street executives immediately cease making campaign contributions to any candidate for public office in this election cycle or next, all Wall Street PACs be closed, and Wall Street lobbyists curtail their activities unless specifically asked for information by policymakers. Why should taxpayers finance Wall Street’s outsized political power – especially when that power is being exercised to get favorable terms from taxpayers?

4. Wall Street firms agree to comply with new regulations over disclosure, capital requirements, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation. The regulations will emerge in ninety days from a bi-partisan working group, to be convened immediately. After all, inadequate regulation and lack of oversight got us into this mess.

5. Wall Street agrees to give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, so homeowners have a fighting chance to keep their homes. Why should distressed homeowners lose their homes when Wall Streeters receive taxpayer money that helps them keep their fancy ones?

Give me a break! If there were a politician who had integrity and said the same thing to everyone, that politician would not get elected. Politicians lie because people do not want to hear the truth. People will only vote for politicians who tell them what they want to hear.

This is what I think:

If you want to get elected you are expected to lie about many things.

If you had an extra-marital affair, you are expected to lie.

If you smoked pot as half of all Americans have, you are expected to lie.

If you ever cheated on your taxes, you are expected to lie.

It seems that American’s are currently incapable of facing the reality that politician’s are human, that all politician’s have skeleton’s in their closet, relative to the expectations of the American public, that political parties will use these skeletons and if they can’t find any, the political parties will manufacturer them through negative public relations campaigns. Why should we expect our politicians to be somehow morally superior to us, the average citizen?

We elect politicians to do a job.

Our politicians should be qualified to do that job.

Our politicians should not be corrupt and should not have a record of corruption. This is not a simple matter. What determines if a politician is corrupt?

This is the definition of corruption per the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

1. Impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle 2. Inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) 3. A departure from the original or from what is pure or correct 4. An agency or influence that corrupts.

So good voters, study this definition well and study to determine if you think a politician fits this definition. If in your best judgement they do then – DO NOT vote for them. We don’t need corrupt politicians!

I predict most voters will continue to elect the politician who lies the most. I believe that is one of the main reasons we have so much corruption built into our political systems. It simply reflects the bad judgement of voters and the limited choices they are presented by our political system.

I’ve had this picture in the ideas folder for some time now. I knew I wanted to do something with it, but I just could not figure out what I wanted to do. First I thought, ahhh!, make a joke, the line could say, “I knew it, the whinny liberals don’t want us to enjoy our life!”. Finally it hit me; what I wanted to write about smoking here is that I am a former smoker and I can tell you this – between my ex-wife and smoking I am not going to see 100.

What I want to say about smoking and pass on is how I quit, because its a real pain in the butt to quit. I was no lightweight smoker, I smoked 2 packs a day. I started smoking when I was 16, you know to be cool. Then I got married. My new wife (at that time) asked me to quit. I did and did not smoke again until I got to know the real woman that I had married and got so stressed out that I started smoking again.

So I started smoking again. Well, it took me ten years then one day it hit me. I thought to myself, you dumb ass your killing your self do you really want that c___ to out live you? So, I started trying to quit, first cold turkey. I had done that one once before but I was newly married to what I thought was a good woman and I was getting sex so cold turkey was not all that bad. That was when I was single and hooked and I tried cold turkey – no luck at all. To make a long story short, I tried several ways before I came up with what worked for me. I took an empty coffee can outside, smoked my last cigarette, then I took the money for the next two packs for that day, put the money in the coffee can and then I made a vow to myself that I would put the money in the coffee can each day and I could not touch it for two years but, if I had a cigarette even a bummed one, I would burn all the money in the can. I made it for 21 days, I broke my vow to myself – there was 80 dollars in that can. Money was tight at that time and really important to me and it damn near killed me to keep my vow to myself and to burn up the $80.00 but I knew it would have been burned up anyway if I had smoked the 21 packs.

I have not had a cigarette since 1998 and after two years I had saved a little bit over $2,735.00 in that same can. I added this money towards buying a nicer Yamaha ATV. Mostly I am so glad that I quit.

If you smoke and want to quit I hope you find a way too.

I hope to hear some other true story’s for quitting smoking of course you can lie too.

I have frequently heard it said that prostitution is a gateway to drugs and crime. It seems to me that this is true but only because prostitution is illegal and forced to be practiced in league with other illegal activities. Through forced association, prostitution does become a gateway to other crimes.

If prostitution were legal it would be regulated like any other business. Prostitutes would be sex workers with rights and privileges, advantages and disadvantages like any other employee. There would be some crime and corruption no doubt, to the extent that there is crime and corruption in legitimate businesses not forced into association with illegal activities. Prostitution would become a service oriented business.

There are many lonely people who for one reason or another are not able to have normal relationships with benefits of sharing in a sexual way. The reasons for this may be medical, emotional, self-esteem issues, perceived social status or fear of intimacy and there there are likely many reasons I have not thought of that some men and woman might want or need this service. As citizens in a free country, I think their reasons for wanting or needing this service are none of my business. Legalizing prostitution would lessen the tax burden on the average citizen because these businesses would pay taxes and contribute to the welfare of the community by doing so. The cost of law enforcement could be reduced or the resources available to law enforcement currently be used to enforce laws against sex business could be redirected toward actual heinous criminal activities that actually DO harm to citizens such as those crimes related to violence, fraud and deception.

To further refine the title question: Why do taxpayers allow tax dollars to be wasted through criminalization of behaviors that may be deemed distasteful but that do not harm then further waste tax dollars to enforce those same laws?

It just makes sense to mind our own business, to allow people who want to provide these services and people who want to use these services the freedom to do so.

In a prior post I sort of half-assed lined out what I thought the Republican Party strategy has been for the past seven or so years.

I think McCain/Palin has changed strategy. They are using the Snipe hunting strategy.

When I was in High School, most every boy at one time or another went with his already initiated friends to hunt Snipe or Side Hill Dodgers or Hide-Behinds.

It was a right-of-passage. I went out with my friends, my gunny-sack (you always caught these things in gunny-sacks) for my first Snipe hunt, my Dad told me ‘son, there is no such thing as Snipe’. I knew my friends wouldn’t lie to me so I went hunting with them but by my third hunt I started to wonder if maybe my Dad knew something I didn’t know, as I had yet to see one Snipe.

It was a play on my youthful gullibility.

I am guessing that McCain/Palin are gambling that most people now-a-days haven’t gone through that right-o-passage…

I am guessing that McCain/Palin are gambling that most American’s will not use the internet to research the facts about their claims for themselves.

They are probably right.

I would call the McCain/Palin strategy ‘The big gamble’ strategy. It seems to me that they take big gambles on just how gullible Americans might really be.

This is a bit of a personal story and a true story. I have a friend that moves all over looking for utopia. He drags his family from town to town and state to state they never settle in one place long enough to find decent jobs, they always complain about no work. After about two months they complain the people in these new towns do drugs or drink to much, jobs in the area just don’t pay enough. They live on the edge of life, but with the thought that some one, some where be it family or big brother will keep them them from falling into the abyss. They don’t see that they fell long ago and that they are at the bottom and looking up and only able to see assholes.

So here is my question – Is there such a place that you can go to or is utopia a state of your own mind?.

After reading the article, I think Lithwick’s logic is sound and that this would be a great course of action for John McCain to follow.

Here is a quote to demonstrate just how sound her logic is:

Finally, Palin has revealed, both as the mayor of Wasilla and then as the chief executive of Alaska, a style of governance that features the not-infrequent firing of dissenters. Among the growing list of those dismissed or threatened with removal on Palin’s watch were Mary Ellen Emmons, the Wasilla town librarian and vociferous opponent of Palin’s proposal to dabble in book banning, and John Bitney, Palin’s legislative director, who was dating the not-quite-ex-wife of one of her husband’s friends. Palin is also the subject of an ethics investigation for firing Walt Monegan, the Alaska Public Safety commissioner, who declined to fire the state trooper divorcing her sister. I can’t help but wonder if following two years of scandals surrounding the Bush administration’s decision to terminate nine U.S. attorneys for their imagined disloyalty, John McCain might be nervous about a vice president with a proclivity toward doing the same thing. If McCain puts Palin on the Supreme Court, however, she has only a trio of law clerks and a secretary to hire, and each can be vetted for ideological purity.

No fair arguing that Palin isn’t experienced enough to sit on the highest court of the land. What matters—far more than experience—is one’s unyielding moral certainty, relatability and gender. And Palin has these qualities in spades. Washington’s old-boy problem hardly ends at the Oval Office. If ever there were a D.C. institution in dire need of a place to plug in a breast pump, it’s the Supreme Court. And Palin has already proven that neither the courts, nor precedent, nor even the Constitution itself will be a match for the force of her will. America has finally found someone suited to put the “law” back into scofflaw, and it’s Sarah Palin. McCain shouldn’t waste her talents on state funerals.

Per Republicans:
Cheney: Lipstick on a pig (really funny!)
McCain: Lipstick on a pig (keen political observation!)
Palin: Lipstick on a pitbull (brilliant!)
Obama: Lipstick on a pig (an outrage!)What do you think:
Do Republicans give new meaning to the term ‘double standards’?
Do the Republicans fake their outrage?
Are the Republicans as phoney as a three dollar bill?

Being an American, this is what I have noticed about lies of omission:

Every decade seems to encourage certain lies of omission and every decade seems to permit or encourage certain truths to be told.

in the 1960’s young people were encouraged to tell the truth about their disdain for ‘authority’ and the ‘establishment’. This truth infected the society at large and there was a general disdain for authority and the ‘establishment’. Certain truths are also discouraged during each generation. In the 1960’s, people were discouraged from expressing patriotism or traditional religious beliefs.

During the 1970’s people of all ages were encouraged to tell the truth about how much they liked sex. This truth also infected the society at large. Adult theaters called ‘Pussy Cat theaters’ were common in most towns as were nude bars, etc. ‘Open marriage’ was a common concept and there were many main stream movies that promoted these kinds of ideas like ‘Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice’. The one night stand was considered a normal, socially acceptable relationship. Prudishness about sex was discouraged. Divorce was encouraged. Therapists would commonly encourage people to get a divorce if there was any dissatisfaction expressed during counseling sessions.

in my opinion, the 1980’s showed signs of overt manipulation of peoples values, wherein citizens were bombarded via TV and radio with government promotion of a return to traditional Family and Christian values. This came about at a time when most people were already fed up with many of the excesses of the 1960’s and 1970’s that were impacting our society in negative ways and this bombardment had a strong effect.

The 1990’s seemed to be about Globalization, multicultural-ism, Big Box Retail Stores, Windows95 and, leveling the playing field. It was a new post cold war world we lived in. The conservative values fostered in the 1980’s by the Reagan Administration seemed to take root during this period. There was this idea of ‘tough love’ floating around.

This new American Century was marked and largely defined by 911, Anti-Terrorism, War and rising prices. The brand of conservative family values and christian values so heavily promoted in the 1980’s during the Reagan Administration and after 911, becomes a fundamentalist force to be reckoned with by those who would favor liberty and democracy over an authoritarian and theocratic interpretation of the primary founding documents of America, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and, our Bill of Rights.

This is what confuses me so about having lived through these nearly 5 decades: If you were to follow the life course of average American’s that I have known, you would find a majority of people who used drugs in the 1960’s and called the police ‘pigs’, who in the 1970’s got divorced or cheated on their partners or participated in ‘group gropes’. You would find many of these same people in the 1980’s, seeing themselves as Christian Conservatives who believe in ‘traditional values’ and who by the time the 1990’s came around, would not admit to having been hippies in the 1960’s and/or swingers in the 1970’s. Then after 911, these same people changed once more to some kind of person I hardly recognize as an American or even a friend.

Then there are people like me. I was slightly influenced by each decade but never gave in to the excesses of what became normal behavior in each decade, including this one. I carry forward the parts of each decade that influenced me. Those influences make me who I am today, which is way outside the mainstream. Not hippie, not swinger, not traditional, not authoritarian. I am a quienticential product of the American way – not a product of any given decade I have survived.

In my opinion, there are lies of omission about the personal transformations most middle age Americans have gone through to ‘fit in’ during some of these rather bizarre periods of radical transformations in American culture. I think that if middle age Americans started being honest about who they really are rather than pretending and going with the flow of these ‘movements’ (and I think this ‘New American Century’ after 911 IS just another ‘movement’) we would see that America is not what it pretends to be now. I am not sure what America is and, I can only speak only from the perspective of my unique generation, but I think all this pompous authoritarian fundamentalist stuff at least when worn by Americans over the age of 50 is not flattering considering their ‘real’ histories and is a dangerous pretense that hides a generation of adults who are too easily influenced and have few core values that can withstand peer pressure. I think if tomorrow, the majority of people started calling the police – ‘pigs’, these same conservative old people would go with the flow and do the same things they have done in the past, they would start seeing me as ‘establishment’ rather than liberal because I would be supporting the police and think these instant liberals were jerks.

World Religion Research
Conclusions reported by Professor Obvious
For the last 15 years our comparative religion department at WASU has been studying world religions.
We have reached a few preliminary conclusions:

People of all religions die at some point as do their family members, their friends and loved ones.

Many people of all religions tend to have sex and have children.

People of all religions tend to eat, sleep and drink liquids.

People of all religions tend to have bodies that look strikingly similar to bodies of people in other religions. For instance, we usually observe, two legs, two arms, two eyes, a single mouth, a single nose, a single head, genital bulges under clothing when worn, two hands with five fingers on each hand, two feet with five toes on each foot. This is not always the case, but common enough that it should be noted. There are many other similar details – see separate appendix.

Living people of all religions seem to breath, have hearts that beat and, have blood flowing through their veins.

The living people almost always have a complex system whereby they take food in, mash it up and, digest it.

Once food or liquids are consumed, it seems that people of most religions do not retain all of what they consume.

Universally, we observed regardless of religion people defecate and urinate.

We have not physically observed this but based on behavior we think most people in most religions have a brain.

We will continue to study this subject to see what other amazing similarities we can find!

It seems that during the past few years more and more people have been forced to work two jobs. No doubt if they are married chances are good that both spouses are working full time. Now with cell phones bosses, rather than having an eight hour day it seems that more people are being forced to be available by phone during what used to be their own private time.

Is it just me or are we all working too much, too long and don’t have enough time to play?

Don’t laugh. Lots of people think that instantly coming into a few million dollars means life on easy street, money that will be around forever, and no need for responsibility or work.

The truth is very rarely does it work out like that for a lottery winner. Unfortunately, a new study published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making finds that people who feel poor are more eager to spend money in an attempt to get rich (this is a good “duh” moment). One recent report found that families who make under $12,400 spend about $645 a year on lottery tickets.

Many poor people are fooled by what they think it means to win the lottery. It’s usually the worst thing that could ever happen to someone.

Coming into a quick pile of cash usually means that people will come out of the woodwork looking to get a piece of your pie. Third cousins whom you didn’t even know existed will call and hit you up for money. You’ll get letters in the mail from complete strangers with every sob story imaginable (unemployed, sick children, in a wheelchair, etc.) in an attempt to get sympathy points and money from you. It puts a big target on your back, and most often it takes you out, too.

When you are feeling the money crunch, the last thing you want to do is spend what little money you have on a super-long shot for money. The odds of winning a lottery are literally about 1 in 125 million.

You are 66 times more likely to die from a snake bite.

You are 2,001 times more likely to die in the electric chair!

You are 2,201 times more likely to die from a hornet, wasp or bee sting.

You are 1,488,095 times more likely to die in a car wreck on the way to the gas station to buy the lottery ticket.

Does all this sound ridiculous? GOOD! It’s supposed to sound that way! Banking on winning the lottery is about as ridiculous as it gets!

Think about this for a second. The less money you have, the more wisely you need to manage it because you don’t have as much room for error. When you make a budget and get out of debt, you have some breathing room. Your budget can get busted when an emergency comes up, but that’s why you save up an emergency fund. The ultimate is when you start investing the money you have. The reason for that is eventually your money will grow to enormous sums because of the power of compound interest.

Forget the lotto. Working hard and saving money is the only surefire way to make money. It works every time … unlike the lotto.

Professor Obvious of WASU gave a lecture today on the state of the world:

Look toward our future! Today there are approximately 6.7 billion people on this little planet. In the next hundred years all these people will be dead, well most of them anyway. What a tragedy! Who will dispose of all these bodies? Think about this too, more people will be born during the next one hundred years and many of those people will die! And what about all the animals? Think about the great blue whales, how many of them will die? What about the lions and tigers and bears? We worry about war, oil, poverty, terrorists and politics but who thinks about the great disaster that is facing us all other than those of us here at WASU?

At WASU, we are thankful to those professor’s who both seek and expose the truth! Obviously, our favorite professor received thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the appreciative audience here at We’re All Screwed University.